unreal lighting problem

Thefirston

hey guys i really need some help, i'm trying to get some nice lighting in my scene and get some cool shadows on my stuff, but it isn't working quite the way i hoped
so what's happening is that when the camera is away from some objects i don't get any shadows for that object

but when i get close i finally get the shading i want

is there anyway to set up unreal so it does this at farther distances and not just at ridiculously close
any help on this would be very much appreciated

coldkodiak

Look for screen space ambient occlusion settings.

I dunno though, it might be hardcoded in UT3.

JordanW

You probably havent built lighting, you need to build the lighting so it bakes the shadows into your static objects.

Thefirston

both of the images i posted were made after i built the lighting

JordanW

are the objects with shadow issues movers or static meshes?

Thefirston

static meshes, but i went into their properties so that they accept shadows and cast shadows

00Zero

those are dynamic shadows. the editor hides them once the object gets too far away from the camera.

if you want "real" shadows you need to bake them.

1. make sure the model you exported has 2 unwrap channels, 1 for textures and the 2nd as a unique unwrap for shadows. (if your asset doesnt have a 2nd unwrap and you cant get it because you dont have the max file to re export it or w/e then read step: "obese whale")

2. after importing the model, double click and go into the model viewer in generic browser. there are 2 settings u need to change on the right side. one is which channel you want to bake shadows to (0 means 1, 1 means 2, etc. unreal starts with 0).

3. put the channel on 1 and then below that set the resolution you want the shadow baked at. (its using your 2nd unwrap so...judge by that how much res you need).

4. unreal is retarded and does this for some reason. after you place the object, select it and go into properties (f4) and on the bottom go to the staticmeshes rollout, then scroll all the way down again and there is ANOTHER static meshes rollout. inside there is bOverrideLightmapResolution or something like that. By default its checked on, you need to turn it off or else it will override your lightmap res to 0.

5. make sure youre using static lights, not dynamic. dynamic = "U" and static uses "S". thats why youre not getting shadows, your light says U in your screenshot.

6. repeat steps 1-4 for any object you want to recieve shadows. and then bake lighting. it will take a while, especiallly if you have any lightmap resolution over 512 and a lot of objects. save or crash and die.

"obese whale". welcome to step 'obese whale'. so you lost your max file and cant re-export with 2nd uv set. no worries. open your model in generic browser model previewer. go to the first menu on the top left and then "generate UV something or another". IMPORTANT: there are 2 dropdowns for channels. leave teh first one alone, change the 2nd one to "1". since you dont have channel 1(aka 2) then it will generate one for you. it will make unique unwrap of ur model. then follow the steps as usual. its not the best way to do it since unreals auto unwrap sucks obese whale v4gina, hence obese whale, yea u were wondering weren't you?

good luck

alexk

have you tried adjusting your lightmap settings for the static meshes? heres a tutorial on how http://waylon-art.com/LearningUnreal/UE3-10-LightMaps.htm

edit: 00Zero pretty much explained the above tutorial